A 59th-minute goal by midfielder Mitsuo Ogasawara handed the Kashima Antlers a deserved 1-0 victory over the Urawa Reds in the Nabisco Cup Final in front of 56,064 fans at Tokyo National Stadium on Monday.
Kashima Antlers forward Atsushi Yanagisawa shoots
during the second half of the J. League Nabisco Cup Final at
Tokyo National Stadium on Monday. The Antlers
won 1-0 to claim the Cup.
The fact that the goal took a wicked deflection off Reds defender Masami Ihara detracts little from the Antlers performance.
While the Reds relied solely on their individual talent in creating goalscoring opportunities, the Antlers took control of the game maximizing their potential as a collective unit.
"It was a close game but we created better chances than they did," said Antlers manager Toninho Cerezo.
"We had had so many injured players and that made me wonder who I would be able to play. But many of them returned and we had a good week because we were highly motivated."
The Reds, admittedly an improved side from past seasons, appeared at times to have difficulty grasping the concept that soccer is a team game, failing to find any meaningful link between their midfield and their forwards.
"In general, it wasn't the best Nabisco Cup Final," admitted Reds manager Hans Ooft. "But we couldn't dictate the match. That was a big handicap today. It was a lucky goal for them but they deserved the victory."
Brazilian striker Emerson ran his socks off for the Reds and Tadaaki Hirakawa provided a dangerous threat down the left flank but Emerson's partner up front, Tuto, had a game he would rather forget.
As poor as Tuto was on the day, constantly taking wrong options and seemingly focused more on arguing with the referee than on the game, it was the midfield battle that effectively determined the outcome of the game.
Yasuto Honda, Koji Nakata, Masashi Motoyama and Ogasawara controlled this area of the park. It was perhaps this performance as opposed to his deflected goal that earned the latter the MVP award.
Ogasawara tackled hard, covered the length of the field well and still managed to find open spaces to attack, narrowly missing the right upright with a well-struck shot in the 28th minute, having carved an opening in the box.
The Reds however, looked comfortable in the opening 20 minutes of the game employing the off-side trap to good effect and getting the ball wide to Hirakawa and Emerson.
In the 18th minute the Reds had a great chance to take the lead when Emerson broke away from his own half, exchanged a neat one-two with Tuto before rounding the advancing Antlers 'keeper Hitoshi Sogahata, only to see his shot miss the target from an acute angle.
As the game progressed, the Antlers began to assert their authority on the game and were prevented from taking the lead just before halftime only by a brilliant save by Norihiro Yamagishi from a point-blank Yutaka Akita header.
The winner eventually came after a good run down to the Reds byline from Atsushi Yanagisawa. Having made his run, Yanagisawa cut the ball back nicely into the path of Ogasawara who blasted the ball goalward. Unfortunately for the Reds, the ball struck Ihara on the side of the head and rolled into the back of the net with the entire Reds defense wrong-footed.
Roared on by its fanatical supporters, the Reds were almost gifted an equalizer when Akita mistimed a pass at the back and Tuto pounced on the loose ball. Tuto inexplicably drove the ball straight at the onrushing Sogahata when he had options to his left in the unmarked Emerson and a gaping goal in front of him.
As the Reds thrust forward in search of the elusive goal, they inevitably left themselves exposed in defense and in the end were fortunate not to have conceded more.
The Antlers' superior big match experience was also a clear advantage on the day and contributed significantly to last year's J. League champions adding to their already silverware-laden trophy cabinet. This point was not lost on losing manager Ooft.
"All our mistakes in passing and supporting each other came together. It was the first time for most of our players to play for a title and some of them played like rookies," he said.
"But if you look at the tournament as a whole, we've come from pretty far to reach this stage. I'm proud of my players."
Ogasawara, playing down his MVP award, praised the role of the team as a unit.
"We had had to play without some of our key players including myself on the way to the final. I was named to the MVP but I only received it as a representative of the winning team. We won it through the hard work of all of us," Ogasawara said.
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